Family dining, family traditions

I didn't grow up within a "traditional" Peranakan family, so any behaviours that were "taught" to me were rather more related to trying to fit into an increasingly cosmopolitan United Kingdom in the 1970s.  However one thing that we did regularly when I was growing up was to go to Chinatown every Sunday to have lunch with friends or relatives.  

Certainly with the current pandemic we've all be eating out less anyway, but inevitably, if you ever accompany me to Malaysia, or happen to eat out with my family, it doesn't hurt to be aware of the following "table manners":

1. Knives do not appear at the dinner table

While there is western cutlery - there is no knife

Considered a "breaker of harmony", a fork will be offered to those less adept with chopsticks at a restaurant, but a knife is not often brought - so if you're struggling, try to use a fork with a spoon.  Related to that - do not gives knives or sharp objects as gifts.  This seems perfectly reasonable - a bit like not running with scissors.  The belief is that a sharp object will "cut" the relationship...I'm not sure how that relates to gifts such as a dinner service or a wedding cake knife!  

2. Leave a little food in the bowl

One of the "family dining" meals during our 2012
theatre trip to Penang & Hong Kong

It is good manners to leave a little food, otherwise, your bowl will continue to be refilled (with the assumption you have not had enough to eat).  However, this is a tradition which is changing somewhat, and certainly my relatives take great joy in making my husband and any white males in my friendship groups joining us "finish up" everything at the table...often made more of a challenge when celebration banquets are often 8 course extravaganzas.

3. Serve elders first

With my family in Ipoh

This is arguably simply polite, and the idea is (a little like "family hold back"), the nicest pieces in the dish are offered.  From a practical point of view, this would also mean it is the younger and more able bodied doing the reaching and serving, again, which makes sense.

4. Chopsticks are to be placed on the holder, rather than stuck into food

I promise, he knows how to use chopsticks!!

Commonly at funerals incense is burned, and the angle of chopsticks "piercing" food is reminicient of that.  It's also inappropriate to point or wave your chopsticks at anyone as object of that shape in Feng Shui is seen as "poison arrows".  (And it's probably best not to do the "woolly mammoth" impression at the table too!)

5.  You can "thank" someone for tea by tapping your finger on the table

Dragonwell tea in The Westlake, China

This was taught to me by a friend, so I am unsure of the original source, but the story is that a king who was fleeing stopped to eat and drink with his men.  Wanting to show respect, but without wishing to reveal his cover, the subjects would instead tap their fingers on the table when he served them tea - so when someone fills your cup, you can tap your fingers on the table to thank them.

6.  Look someone in the eye when you toast

Drinking snow beer in Penang

Also taught to me from another friend who was told - if you don't, that's 7 years of bad luck in the bedroom.  While I would argue that making eye contact with a toast (especially across a room) is one of life's little intimate moments to be enjoyed...and is otherwise just polite - why take the risk?